Last week we looked at how ACC teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.
Once again, here are the 2024 ACC standings.
And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.
Finally, ACC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.
No ACC teams saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR, so we will move on to more pressing issues.
A Brief History of Non-Conference Conference Games
One of the unfortunate consequences of conference expansion is that former conference rivals don't see each other as much as they used to. With some conferences roughly double the size they were thirty years ago, some teams are resorting to filling out their non-conference schedule with conference opponents. NC State and Virginia will do just that in 2025 and 2026. Being the curious type, I used my recent Stathead subscription (would recommend) to search the Sports Reference database for all such instances of non-conference conference games. They are listed below along with a brief narrative. I also included recent bowl games between conference opponents as that will be a more common occurrence with the expanded College Football Playoff. First though, the regular season matchups.
Non-Conference Conference Games
Cal and Colorado played a non-conference game in Berkeley as members of the Pac-10 and Big 12 respectively in 2010. Cal dominated the Buffaloes in the final season of the Dan Hawkins era. Colorado, along with Utah, joined the Pac-10 (renamed the Pac-12) in 2011 with the return game in Boulder already on the schedule. The league left the game as is and counted it as a non-conference game. Cal won again, but this one was much closer. Had this game counted in the conference standings, it would not have impacted the league race. Both the Bears and Buffaloes finished with losing conference records and were not in contention for the league title.
Before meeting in Winston-Salem in 2019, Wake Forest and North Carolina had played just once since 2012. The in-state rivals that played every season between 1944 and 2004 scheduled the first premeditated non-conference conference game. Wake won the 2019 edition. Had this been a legitimate conference game, it would not have significantly impacted the ACC race as both teams finished with identical 4-4 marks in the ACC. However, the return game two years later in Chapel Hill would have drastically impacted the conference race. Wake entered the game with an 8-0 record and the highest ranking in school history (10th). The Demon Deacons appeared to be on their way to a 9-0 start as they led 45-27 in the third quarter and were up two touchdowns entering the fourth. The Tar Heels scored 24 consecutive points to take a double digit lead and held on to win by three. Wake lost to Clemson a few weeks later, but won their other league games and represented the Atlantic Division in the ACC Championship Game. Had this game replaced one of Wake's other cross-division games, there would have been a three-way tie atop the Atlantic Division (Clemson, NC State, and Wake). I'm unsure how the conference would have broken this hypothetical tie, but it likely would have resulted in a different conference title matchup.
After losing Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC, the Big 12 raided the Pac-12, adding Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah to the league. Two of those former Pac-12 schools (Arizona and Utah) already had games with Big 12 schools on the books. Utah played Baylor in Waco in 2023 and the return game was already set for Salt Lake City in 2024. Meanwhile, Arizona was already scheduled to play another destruction of Wildcats in Manhattan. Arizona and Kansas State are set for the return game in Tucson in 2025.
Navy joined the AAC in 2015 and their service academy rivals joined in 2024. Despite playing in the same conference, America's Game will retain its standalone spot in December after the conference championship game is contested. This author hopes to see the Black Knights and Midshipmen playing each other on back to back weekends in the near future.
Postseason Games Between Conference Foes
Note this list is confined to the BCS/CFP era (since 1998), so the Orange Bowl after the 1978 season and any other postseason game happening prior to the modern era are not considered.
This was a mostly forgotten game between two Mountain West also rans (combined 13-11 record entering the game) that was not even broadcast on traditional television. As least the game ended up being good, with Nevada scoring a late touchdown to win.
The 2011 BCS Championship Game was somewhat consequential as it not only delivered Nick Saban his third national title and denied Les Miles his second, it also set the stage for the creation of the College Football Playoff. The fourth edition of that College Football Playoff gave us a classic as Alabama defeated Georgia in overtime thanks to heroics from Tua Tagovailoa and DeVonta Smith. Georgia retuned the favor four years later to win their first national title in four decades.
This past season's Rose Bowl was a rematch of a regular season classic. The rematch was not quite as competitive as Ohio State raced out to a 34-0 lead and never looked back.
Though it was not nearly as meaningful as this year's Rose Bowl, we must remember the Alamo Bowl. BYU won eleven games for the second time in five seasons and ended Heisman winner Travis Hunter's college career on a sour note.
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